The use of computing devices has greatly increased in recent years. Computing devices such as tablet computers, smart phones, cellular phones, and netbook computers, are now commonplace throughout society. Computing devices can also include, for example, cars, planes, household appliances, and thermostats. With this increase in the number of computing devices, the number of applications has also greatly increased. Software developers have created new applications to meet the varying needs and requirements of users. For example, map applications allow users to navigate from one location to another, game application allow users to play video games on their computing device, social networking applications allow users to connect to a social network to post/share content, a calorie tracking application may allow users to track the amount of calories are in the food the users eat, etc.
On a computing device (e.g., a tablet, a smart phone, a laptop computer a PDA, etc.) applications can be represented by a visual icon that is displayed by the computing device. Selecting the icon (e.g., by tapping or double tapping the icon) can launch the application for use by the user. A user may often have so many applications installed on a computing device that the icons representing the applications do not fit on a single page of the display of the computing device.
Although users have a multitude of applications, most users do not spend a lot of time or effort organizing the icons that represent their applications. As a user installs different applications onto a computing device, the computing device may automatically arrange icons for the applications in the order in which they were downloaded and/or installed. Because users may not organize their applications, it may be hard for users to access applications easily and/or quickly when they need to. This may be frustrating to users, who often open different applications tens, or hundreds, of times per day. In addition, switching between different applications tens, or hundreds, of times per day, and going through the process of locating an application, launching the application, closing the application, locating another application, launching the other application, etc. may be irritating to a user, especially when the user may interact with an application for only a few seconds before moving on to another application.
Furthermore, many computing devices include a lock screen. A lock screen may be a user interface element that may control access to a computing device. A user may perform an action to unlock the lock screen and gain access to the device. For example, the user may enter a password, perform a gesture using a touch object 122 (e.g., swiping a finger across the screen), or click a button on the screen to unlock the lock screen and gain access to the device. To access and/or use applications that are on the computing device (e.g., a game, a social networking application, a video player, etc.), a user may need to unlock the lock screen, find the desired application, and start the desired application. This may cause a delay when the user wishes to quickly access an application on the computing device (e.g., an email application, etc.). In addition, if the lock screen re-locks the device (e.g., the lock screen re-locks the device after a period of inactivity), the user may have to unlock the device again and find the desired application again. Users may be frustrated when they try to quickly access an application but cannot quickly access the application because of the lock screen.